What does it mean to map content?

What does it mean to map content?

When you map your content, you line it up with your ideal customer personas and their buyer’s journeys. In other words, you imagine each of your personas as a real person, slowly moving from their discovery of a problem until they determine a solution and officially convert into a customer.

By deeply understanding the pain points experienced by customers, and therefore the types of information they are seeking, you can align your content at each stage.

How does mapping content help my marketing strategy?

By mapping your content, you are able to clearly see how your content aligns with the buyer’s journey that you are targeting. Any gaps in your content production process will become apparent. You will also be able to plan your editorial calendar and future content strategies based on your identified weaknesses.

How do I map content?

Content mapping can help brands understand how well their efforts are satisfying the needs of their prospects and where gaps exist. Use these steps to assess the effectiveness of your content:

Develop strong and thorough buyer personas. You want to make sure that you understand the pain points and motivations of your customer targets.

Take your buyer personas and plot their buyer’s journeys. Start with their initial realization that they have a problem, through their research stages, and to the conclusion when they make the decision to become a customer. Using your personas, along with a careful examination of traffic patterns on your own site, determine the topics and types of content that people are most likely to be interested in at each stage.

Lay out your existing content to these journeys for the different buyer personas.

Analyze the distribution of your different types of content. Look for gaps in your content creation and make sure that you focus most of your creation efforts on the beginning of the buyer’s journey. Your content should mimic the journey of your customers, with the highest numbers at the beginning and tapering off at each stage.

Use keyword research and the BrightEdge Data Cube to start finding ideas to fill in the rest of the buyer’s journeys.